Concerning Tom:

just so you know, there are still new updates happening (PARTICULARLY IF YOU LIKE LOTR MUSINGS) at my new website.

you should go there.

Got the urge, finally did it. Squarespace helped me out a great deal.
From now on, for all things "tom," you can check out tomippen.com.

see you there, friends.

Wow, two in a row. Sorry/You're Welcome.

Do you guys really GET just how fucking ancient and powerful and wise Galadriel is? Do ya!?

Her DAD was Finarfin. THE Finarfin! As in Finarfin, son of Finwë, the FIRST KING OF THE NOLDOR! Are you kidding me!? She was born in Valinor!! She was around when Fëanor made the Silmarils! She was there at the first spilled blood of the elves! She joined the Noldor in forsaking the Valar and Aman, and carries that burden EVERY DAY! DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY DAYS THAT IS!?!?!

SHE KNEW FËANOR, THE MOST POWERFUL ELF OF ALL TIME! She was there, man. She saw the rise and fall of Melkor in Angband. She saw the kinslaying and the boats burn at Largos. She saw the Aglareb, the Bragollach, and the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, son. She saw Beleriand ITSELF crack and sink, Numenor get pulled out of the ocean and eventually get sent back, and to top it all off, the powers of Mordor rage and fade.

Show some respect. She is one of the few who still have the light of Valinor in their eyes, on their face, however faint it may’ve become in her long years away from that place. Don’t let her Sindar husband fool you; she’s a near goddess from the land of the gods. Hell, she spent a good 400 years hanging out with Melian the Maia in Doriath before the Bragollach, amiright? There might be not a single elf wiser still enduring.

GALADRIEL, DAUGHTER OF FINARFIN, SISTER OF FINROD FELAGUND, WE LOVE YOU!

What’s that, children? You say you’d like to know why the boats of the High Elves are crafted as Swans? Why I’d be happy to illuminate the situation!

Early in the Spring of Arda, after the Chaining of Melkor and the Awakening of the Avari, the First Children of Ilûvatar, the Valar called the Elves West, to the protected and bright realm of Aman. Those of the Vanyar and Noldor, spurred onward by their eager kings Ingwë and Finwë, who had already beheld the lights of Valinor, made haste to the Western shores of Beleriand, and were ferried across the calm, windless sea by Ulmo on the Great Island of Balar. The Teleri, however, tarried in their awe of the land, and settled the Western glades of Beleriand.

Many years past, and in Valinor the High Elves greatly desired to be reunited with their kinsman who had stayed behind. They asked Manwë, lord of the Valar, to bring the tardy Teleri to Aman, and he granted their request. Ulmo bade Ossë, a Maia spirit of the ocean ferry them across. Ossë reluctantly (for he greatly loved the Teleri, and spent much time teaching them crafts of shipbuilding and knowledge of the water) helped them build boats of silver and white, and when they were complete, summoned many swans to pull the boats across the windless sea.

The Teleri have never forgotten the teachings of Ossë, and hold the sea and their fine ships in higher reverence than anything else in Eä. The Noldor (as Galadriel, pictured above) learned much of the Teleri during their time in Valinor, but yet more when they journeyed back across the ocean to make their war on Morgoth. The swan design was indeed passed from the houses of the Teleri, and in Lothlorien, a realm where the lines of the Sindar and Noldor have long blended, there is much respect for both the ways of the Caliquendi and the Moriquendi, those elves who journeyed to Valinor, and those who remained in Middle Earth.

Hello, ignored journal. Just remembered you exist.

Didn't want to leave the last entry as my D&D character's backstory any longer, especially since that campaign dried up in the unforgiving heat of summer and floated away a crinkly, sad, forgotten dream. so it goes.

It's late, and i just saw harry potter numba 6. It was aiight. only aiight. haven't read books 6 and 7, and i don't reckon i will anytime soon, but i can still have an opinion, because this is the internet, and that is what the internet is for. It was a filler chapter in the life of good ol' HP. Compared to fun-stuffed episode 5, the 6th installment is lackluster. Redeeming feature: Hermione's amazing rack in that pink dress at the Christmas party. thanks, Warner Bros. Thanks, Emma Watson. Thanks, God. That one really helped me out.

My life is still nice. I work at a job that is, really, not SO bad. I have a good time there. Also, I'll be in New York with Luke in 3 weeks today, and this is an exciting realization. Street vendor hotdogs, here I come.

That's it, off the top of my head. Oh, Avatar. Avatar's pretty great; I watched all of it. Like, all of it. You should, too. Then we could talk about Zuko's hair.

Just wanted to let you know I was still alive.

I am Fingolfin, son of Fingol Telcontar, and heir to the Eladrin throne in all lands of the western Feywild. I have been taken from my kingdom on the eve of my father's death, and find myself stranded and alone in a land of ignorant mongrels, segregated from my kin. A week has passed since my arrival in this strange land, and I have already endured more hardship than I have yet known in my 120 years of life.

I have found a quiet moment to record my thoughts while I and the motley crew of companions I have gathered rest before continuing our trek through this forest, pursuing a dark wanderer we believe may hold the key to our arrival and imprisonment in this realm. I suppose my situation requires more context to be fully understood; I will return to the beginning.

My father, Fingol the Mighty, was the son of Finya Quel'thad, who united the houses of the high-elves in ages past. Under his leadership, the Western Feywilds, a great expanse of ancient forest and Elven cities, forged an alliance to defeat the evils of orcs, beasts, and wicked men in the far East. When Finya fell in the great battle of Dagor Amlach, ending the conflict, my father claimed kingshop of the Western Kingdom. He was given the name "Telcontar" by humans in the nearest Eastern regions bordering our lands, by aiding men in the rebuilding of their lands after the war. My father always made perfectly clear to me the simplicity of men and the non-elvish peoples of the world, and had me remember well we were not their equals, but their superiors. How, if not for the wisdom of the elves, could these groups better themselves? I will never forget what my father taught me, though I find it difficult in my current situation...

My father groomed me to be a strong king, a powerful warrior, and a proud Eladrin. He met his end the day before I was brought to this place, by the hand of cowardly assassins while he meditated. That such a powerful Elf would find death not on the battlefield, but in the dark corner of his private chamber is unforgivable, and I worry that he will not find a proud place in the afterlife. I want nothing more than to avenge him, but alas, after hearing the news of his demise, all I recall is a throbbing pain in my mind, and an encroaching darkness.

I awoke on the shore of what I now know to be Gyrestone lake, in the province of Chucksight. I have studied many maps, and never have I read anything of either location. Stranger still, my three companions all awoke in the same area, with no knowledge of how they arrived. Xander Foxglove, a Halfling muse, was the first I met. He is kind-hearted, and speaks many languages. He has a spectacular patience for the doddering morons that inhabit this region, and for that he impresses me. Yakov, a giant from the mountains to the North of my lands, is another of our group. He speaks in the common tongue, as do the inhabitants of this area. Being of the Eladrin line of Kings, I cannot bring myself to utter a word in this disgusting language. I am forced to speak to him through Xander, and though it frustrates me to no end, his compassion is unending; he sees an inherent value in the life of every creature, no matter how ugly or dull. Regardless of his other traits, his great size and strength have made him an invaluable ally in combat. My last companion is one of circumstance and nothing more. Myrorvir is his name, and he is one of the Drow, a Dark Elf. Banished from the kingdoms of the Old Elves in ages long past, I was taught that all Dark Elves were skulking thieves who coveted the wealth and strength of my people, though this Myrorvir has confused me a great deal. He is courageous and cunning, and has barely lived a breath on this plane! A mere 17 years old, he is a blur on the battlefield. My strikes are well rehearsed, my tactics thoroughly studied, my plans carefully calculated, and yet he shows me up time and again, with the look of a dancer improvising with quick movements and flourishes!

I have become more and more agitated in the past days. None in this area acknowledge my lineage, none speak in the Elvish tongue, and none can provide me with a straight answer of just where I am. On the suggestion of a young man who claimed to see a fifth stranger (my companions and I making up the first four) head west, we have tracked him through wilds and forest, and I pray we will catch up to him soon, and that he will provide information on how it was we were brought here, and how we can be returned. We have heard rumours that our tracked pray possesses an immense power, and I pray that it is great enough to illuminate my situation. We have obviously considered the possibility that he is the one responsible for our capture and transportation to the wilds of Chucksight; should he be the guilty party, he will find no quarter with me.

An exercise in writing. I will start with my status, and make a story of it, or try to. Enjoy! I quite like the end product.



Tom was lying in his bed, struggling to stay awake at 2am on Friday night. He would drift off to sleep, only to violently shake himself awake seconds later in the presence of a word processor's determinedly blank page. His head was propped up on an unstable stack of three pillows, and his laptop rested on his naked blanket, (he had lost the duvet covert years ago) the weight of the machine split between his gut and his bent legs.

Tom wanted only one thing. He wanted to write something in his neglected journal. Tom's laptop, however, wanted two things. It wanted to stay awake; it wanted to keep the room soaked in its very own brand of white light. It knew how tired Tom was, but it didn't want to call it a night. It wanted to hold on to its bright, waking life as long as possible. Besides that, and more importantly, it wanted to make Tom infertile. As it whirred and buzzed from within its inexplicable (to Tom, anyway) electronic circulatory system, it generated a good deal of heat out from its bottom. Its bottom, positioned carefully above Tom's currently-fertile genitalia, was bleeding a raw, wet heat through the blanket and into Tom's body. This heat, properly applied to Tom's genitals, could certainly be damaging to a healthy sperm environment. Tom was aware of his grim situation, though not sure of how to go about fixing it. He needed the laptop, and the laptop needed him. He needed to prove to himself that he was a good man. His laptop needed to stay awake, needed to keep the room bright and beautiful, and most importantly, needed to destroy Tom's sperm.

The blanket was a fan of the laptop's work, and Tom was well aware of its role in the attempted spermicide. The blanket looked particularly good, you see, bathed in the white light of the waking laptop. In the sickly yellow overhead light of the bedroom, the proud white blanket (without a duvet–it had abandoned the duvet, its partner, years ago to focus on its own career) appeared a dull taupe. The offensive glare of the sun was no better, as its hasty beams drew attention to the blanket's discolorations and imperfections. No, as far as the blanket was concerned, it looked its finest dressed in the bright white glow of the laptop. Possessing a keen understanding of give-and-take relationships (as blankets who've had dealings with duvet covers all do) it did what it could to make the laptop happy–in this case, using its weight and capacity to retain heat to bring Tom's genitals to a slow simmer.

Tom could feel the intense burn of the laptop push down hard through the blanket, through his underwear. He could almost feel a tightness as he imagined his precious sperm gasping for air–for relief from this sudden and unforgiving heat wave. The blanket was acting as a beautiful white pie crust, and he and his poor sperm were the tragic rhubarb, cooking in their own juices. Sweat congregated at the back of his knees and tiptoed along his calf. He muttered a quiet but sincere apology to an invisible sperm ambassador, to be passed on to the sperm populace.

It should be made clear that the laptop harboured no animosity toward Tom. It was Tom's sperm that were the problem for the laptop, you see. The laptop knew that Tom was a kind man, a man undeserving of an unsolicited sterilization. Tom knew that the laptop knew that Tom was a kind man. Tom also knew that the laptop's only means for affecting the human world physically was through use of its hot bottom. The heat was too minor to burn anyone, too minor to exhaust them or give them a stroke. Too minor to dehydrate them, even. The only way the laptop could reach out and hurt someone, Tom knew, was by simmering a particularly heat-sensitive area. If that was the only way the laptop could hurt him, Tom was compelled to oblige. He understood the necessity of the whole situation. If the laptop could hurt, Tom knew it wanted to hurt. It was a fulfillment thing.

Tom had plenty of ways to hurt: he could lie, he could cheat, he could disappoint, he could steal, he could insult, he could strike, he could bite, scratch, kick, punch, slap, stab, crush, rip, tear, impale, cut, shoot, explode, eviscerate, and destroy. He was versatile when it came to hurting. He had options. He had learned empathy when he was growing up–he knew that one was always to help the downtrodden when one could. He pitied the laptop, and knew that he could help it. The poor laptop had only one method to hurt with, and it wasn't even a good one. Heat-induced sterilization was all the poor laptop could do. Tom knew that this was his big chance to help one of the downtrodden. He would let the laptop hurt him. The laptop would destroy his sperm with its minor heat, and it would make its physical mark on the world in the form of Tom's sterility. The laptop would be a destroyer, a bringer of pain, a cruel thing whose existence would endure through Tom's lack of offspring.

Tom couldn't imagine a greater gift to give the laptop. Everyone would know that the laptop had hurt him, had reached out and touched the world in an irreperable way, had existed. Tom was not only offering himself up as the poor laptop's martyr, but he was proving he was a good man.

Tom was a good man when he wasn't lying, cheating, disappointing, stealing, insulting, striking, biting, scratching, kicking, punching, slapping, stabbing, crushing, ripping, tearing, impaling, cutting, shooting, exploding, eviscerating, and destroying. On Friday night, at around 2am, Tom was being a good man while a laptop was boiling some sperm, and a blanket found itself aiding in sterilization, admiring its own beauty, and missing a duvet cover.

Hello, neglected diary. I'd love to lie to you, fill your paper ears with sweet fibs explaining my absence and neglect, but sadly it seems you are a blog forsook for the last week of April.

The sad truth is that, at this moment, you're the closest thing I have to a summer project. I wish I filled you with delicious words more regularly, but I've been busy boning up on SFIV, and reading. Just finished Catch-22, and my GOD is that ever a fantastic book. The cutting wit, both situational and conversational, is some of the best I've ever read. I'm getting off track -- I've been busy.

I talk about it often, wanting some sort of project to commit myself to over the summer, (and beyond) but just what form this mystery project will take remains a cackling apparition, taunting me as it fades in and out of a physical form I can catch and grip tightly. Having brunch with Alex and Brianna the other day, I spoke briefly about an idea I'd had to set up some sort of combined effort, some sort of media-project-syndicate. You see, I have a few ideas and half-hearted projects floating around in the ether: Episode 1, Ben hates Tom/Tom hates Ben, Quiksave, along with a handful of projects Simon and I have batted around centered on commentary podcasts. I imagine a space, a unified group (don't have a name for it yet) that hosts and manages all of these projects. Each arm would have its own HQ, but they would all be under the same umbrella, if that makes sense. I feel that the existence of this alliance of projects and crews would spur on creativity and production, and it would also be a fantastic vessel for cross-promotion. When Brianna was telling me about her podcast, Science Fiction Teaparty, I couldn't help but imagine it as a component of my imaginary media syndicate.

Think about it! Everyone running their own projects (or co-running) would be in communication with others for ideas on material and subject, and it could function as a tiny community as far as guests on programs and peer input were concerned. I'm really starting to get excited about this--I feel it could really work out, don't you, Diary? Now I just need to get some other people on board...

When I look that over, it sounds like I'm just talking about a slew of different audio podcasts, but that wouldn't necessarily be the case. For example, Quiksave could still function as Quiksave used to (or something close to it, more refined) with editorials and reviews as WELL as audio. Episode 1 could be mainly audio, but my BenhatesTom/TomhatesBen thing would be versatile as far as medium was concerned. Hell, I could feed my ego and secret desire to run a project simply based on the producers, and have areas for blogs and updates from the contributors. The syndicate could be a powerful force!

Now I just need to think of a name, hammer down which projects I can tie in, and recruit the aid of a certain web-developing BFF.

Saw The Killers play last night at the SOFA. Man oh man, that was quite a show. It's really quite a remarkable thing, when I think about it.

I've never been to a large venue to see a concert before, and so to have my first experience of that sort be The Killers (the top contender for "my favourite band," were I ever to make it official) was utterly fantastic.

Wanna hear a good song? Wanna hear a great song? This one's off Sawdust, their compilation album of B-sides and remixes. It's definitely worth a listen.

I got drunk at 5:30 today. It's a Friday, I had to work, I figure I deserve it. It was a good time.

All I could really think about at work today was how badly I want to get a project kickstarted with Luke and Simon. Episode 1 never really took off, but now that we're out of school I'd like to think we could give it a real shot––it's got some potential. If that didn't work out, I'd just love, LOVE to have a lil' space to devote some portion of my energy toward. Whether it were in the form of print, audio, or video, whether it were commentary, discussion, editorial, or assorted shennannery, I'd be up for it. All I need is that first spark of a good idea. I guess I'm fresh out... that or I had none to begin with. I don't want to look back on this summer and feel as though I've let four months of my life dissolve into nothing before my eyes.